Honduran president signs deal allowing Zelaya to return

[BrainGlutton]

Remember Manuel Zelaya? Former President of Honduras, forced out in a military coup in 2009 and sent into exile – the Obama Admin condemned it but did nothing. (While many Dopers at the time defended the coup in GD, or, even, denied it was a coup.)

Now Zelaya and the new POH, Porfirio Lobo, have signed a deal, brokered by the Colombian and Venezuelan governments, that allows Zelaya – and his supporters – to return to Honduras, and also to participate in Honduran politics.

I find it very encouraging, to begin with, that Colombia and Venezuela, which have been so often at loggerheads in the past decade, can put aside their differences long enough to make peace between third parties. But, what does this portend for the future of democracy in Honduras and in LA generally?

[BrainGlutton]

OAS to restore Honduras’ membership.

The Organization of American States may vote to restore Honduras next month as a member of the regional group after the Central American nation agreed to ensure the safe return of former President Manuel Zelaya.

The vote to restore Honduras, which was expelled by the OAS following the military ouster of Zelaya in June 2009, will take place June 1, according to a resolution passed yesterday at an OAS meeting in Washington. Only Ecuador voiced opposition to Honduras’ return to the 35-member state group.

The country’s possible reinstatement comes after Honduran President Porfirio Lobo signed an accord May 22 with Zelaya, allowing him to return from exile and help reform the country’s laws. The agreement, brokered with the help of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, also guarantees that Zelaya supporters can return safely to Honduras and form a party to participate in elections.

“Zelaya’s return will probably ratchet up tensions in the country, which has been beset by workers’ protests and rising crime and violence in recent months,” Heather Berkman, a political risk analyst at the Eurasia Group in New York, said by e-mail. Still, she added, “Zelaya’s political ambitions will probably not hamper the efforts of the Lobo administration to get the country’s economy back on track.”

Interesting times.

[BrainGlutton]

And, he’s home!

Zelaya arrived at Tegucigalpa’s international airport from Managua, Nicaragua, in a plane belonging to Venezuelan state-run airline Conviasa. He was accompanied by his family and a delegation of international allies, including former Panamanian President Martin Torrijos and Venezuela Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro.

“Thanks to your efforts I’ve been able to return to my land,” he told a crowd who had come to the airport to welcome him. Many were dressed in red in a show of solidarity with Zelaya’s National Popular Resistance Front, a coalition that advocated for his return. “Your presence here this afternoon, and international support, shows that blood was not spilt in vain.”

Honduran President Porfirio Lobo signed an agreement May 22 with Zelaya, allowing him to return from exile and help change the country’s laws. The agreement, brokered with the help of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, also guarantees that Zelaya supporters can return safely to Honduras and form a party to participate in elections.

[BrainGlutton]

Interview with Zelaya:

AMY GOODMAN: You say that the coup was a conspiracy. And you talked about the right wing in the United States. Explain exactly what you understand. Who fomented this coup against you?

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] The conspiracy began when I started to join what is ALBA, the Latin American nations with Bolivarian Alternative. So, a dirty war at the psychological level was carried out against me. Otto Reich started this. The ex-Under Secretary of State Roger Noriega, Robert Carmona, and the Arcadia Foundation, created by the CIA, they associated themselves with the right wing, with military groups, and they formed a conspiracy. They argued that I was a communist and that I was attacking the security of the hemisphere, because I’m a friend of Fidel, I’m a friend of Chávez, and I had declared my government as a government which is progressive.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, WikiLeaks released that trove of U.S. government cables, and in it was a cable from then-U.S. ambassador—the then-U.S. ambassador to Honduras to the State Department, saying that—I think it was titled "Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup," and it was saying it was illegal, it was unconstitutional. It was written by U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens.

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] Hugo Llorens cooperated in order to avoid the coup d’état. He knew everything that was happening in Honduras. And I am a witness to the effort that he made to stop the coup. But when he perceived that he could no longer stop it, then he withdrew. I don’t know if he had orders to withdraw, but he allowed everything to happen. He did help my family a great deal after the coup. And I am grateful to him now. He showed me that he is someone who believes in democracy and not in the coups d’état. But a great part of the Pentagon does not believe this, nor does the Southern Command.

AMY GOODMAN: What does the Southern Command have to do with this?

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] The link that Ambassador Ford, who was the ambassador from the United States before Llorens, he said that I could not have a friendship with Hugo Chávez. He wanted me to give political [asylum] to Posada Carriles. He wanted to name who my ministers of my cabinet of my government should be. He wanted his recommendations to become ministers of my government.

AMY GOODMAN: Posada Carriles, he wanted him to be able to take refuge in Honduras, the man who was alleged to be the mastermind behind the Cubana bombing that killed scores of people?

MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] After eight days of my becoming president of the country, the ambassador, Charles Ford, asked me if I could give political asylum to Posada Carriles in Honduras. And of course, I sent him to outside. He spoke to my foreign minister, my secretary of state, about that—the same ambassador who prohibited me from becoming a member of the ALBA. And this ambassador, who just left Honduras, who left the country with a political profile of myself, the ambassador, Ford, left this letter as a profile of the president, and when you read it, you can tell that it is the precursor of the coup itself. WikiLeaks published this document. They published the profile that Ambassador Ford made of me to give to Hugo Llorens, saying that the United States needs to make decisions about what it will do the following year in order to detain me, because I am tied to narcotrafficking and to terrorism and to many, many other things. So, he prepared the ambiance, situation. And he was transferred from the embassy to the Southern Command. And that is the tie. And if you ask today, where is this Ambassador Ford? He is in the Southern Command. And so, he left here in order to prepare the coup d’état.

I think this is connecting some distant dots . . . Still, stranger things have happened, in this hemisphere, and with U.S. involvement.

[Frodo]

@BrainGlutton

Interview with Zelaya:

I think this is connecting some distant dots . . . Still, stranger things have happened, in this hemisphere, and with U.S. involvement.

The dots don’t seem so distant from here, Ambassador says Zelaya must be stopped, Ambassador is posted to southern command, a coup to stop Zelaya happens…, I think it depends on the role Souther Command plays in this kind of thing, and as you say, given the previous history of the region…

[smiling_bandit]

I find it hilarious that Brainglutton actually remembered and cared. Of course, my opinion was and is that Zelaya was a ridiculous idiot with delusions of adequacy with no business running a McDonalds register, let alone Honduras. So I wasn’t terribly broken up about anything, nor did I care about his, err, “triumphant” return.

[GIGObuster]

@smiling_bandit

I find it hilarious that Brainglutton actually remembered and cared. Of course, my opinion was and is that Zelaya was a ridiculous idiot with delusions of adequacy with no business running a McDonalds register, let alone Honduras. So I wasn’t terribly broken up about anything, nor did I care about his, err, “triumphant” return.

The point was and remains that right wingers forgot what democracy was supposed to be, I agree with one doper who said once: “Democracy is not for sissies”, Guys like Senator Demint in the USA were just cowards by supporting the coup plotters.

[Frodo]

@smiling_bandit

I find it hilarious that Brainglutton actually remembered and cared. Of course, my opinion was and is that Zelaya was a ridiculous idiot with delusions of adequacy with no business running a McDonalds register, let alone Honduras. So I wasn’t terribly broken up about anything, nor did I care about his, err, “triumphant” return.

I think the opinion that counts about him is not yours, nor mine, it’s the Hondurans opinion.

It’s called Democracy you know…

[smiling_bandit]

@Frodo

I think the opinion that counts about him is not yours, nor mine, it’s the Hondurans opinion.

And I have the wonderful right of having an opinion (or rather, fact) that Zelaya is an idiot. I don’t much care whether he rules Honduras like an Chinese Emperor or if he shines shoes on the corner of Wall and Heer streets. he’s an idiot and there’s no getting around it.

Democracy, amazingly enough, doesn’t mean that I may not have an opinion about Genghis Khan, Zelaya, Charles DeGaul, or Mao Zedong. It means that people vote for them, or not. In most cases they did, which was part of the problem in all four cases. Democracy means you get office if you can keep it. It does not mean you get respect you don’t deserve. And as you may have noticed, no democracy is absolute for long. They must be Republics in practice, or fail, and if too many idiots get into power, they fail. Zelaya triggered the latter, regardless of what you or anyone else thinks about him.

But what do I know. I’m not a Democrat (ba-dum-kssh!)

Edit: Further, I should note that while I’m no expert in Honduran law, the military hardly carried it out on its own recognizance, and in fact the “coup” was no less legal than Zelaya’s extra-legal, if not precisely illegal, plans to change the Honduran Constitution. I don’t see the need to care about Honduras, but I also note the only reason Brainglutton cares is that Zelaya was far enough leftist to be automatically beloved by Brainglutton’s partisan heart. otherwise, he would not give a fig, and if the military was pro-Leftist, he’d be out there arguing it was a heroic victory against the oppressing tyrant.

I, on the other hand, have the great advantage of neither knowing nor caring about Honduras for a fig.

[BrainGlutton]

@smiling_bandit

I, on the other hand, have the great advantage of neither knowing nor caring about Honduras for a fig.

Ignorance embraced!

[Martin_Hyde]

@smiling_bandit

I don’t see the need to care about Honduras, but I also note the only reason Brainglutton cares is that Zelaya was far enough leftist to be automatically beloved by Brainglutton’s partisan heart. otherwise, he would not give a fig, and if the military was pro-Leftist, he’d be out there arguing it was a heroic victory against the oppressing tyrant.

I, on the other hand, have the great advantage of neither knowing nor caring about Honduras for a fig.

This is 100% true, note that in actual cases where militant leftists essentially seize control of democracies and undermine the democratic process illegally BrainGlutton strongly supports them. He is a major supporter of Hugo Chavez whose own failed coup is a historical fact and whose fraudulent manipulation of election results is widely accepted by many international observers who aren’t Jimmy Carter.

[GIGObuster]

@Martin_Hyde

This is 100% true, note that in actual cases where militant leftists essentially seize control of democracies and undermine the democratic process illegally BrainGlutton strongly supports them. He is a major supporter of Hugo Chavez whose own failed coup is a historical fact and whose fraudulent manipulation of election results is widely accepted by many international observers who aren’t Jimmy Carter.

Thats funny, in the previous discussions I mentioned that in Ecuador in 2000 the people did remove the president, I was against it and supported the compromise that prevented the leftists that pulled the removal from continuing in power.

It is the turn for rightists to learn that supporting a coup is not supporting democracy

[GIGObuster]

As for Chavez, Carter was right, in the last presidential election the stupid opposition to Chavez had to rely on wishful polls and fraudulent reports from the right wing press in an attempt to incite rebellion, they failed.

[smiling_bandit]

@BrainGlutton

Ignorance embraced!

Cute. But apathy has the great advantage of clarity. Neither knowing nor caring about Honduras, I can see more accurately than you, who have an emotional stake in the outcome.

[BrainGlutton]

Honduras has already been readmitted to the OAS. That’s something.

Though it might be a mixed blessing. From The Nation:

Zelaya Returns to Honduras, But Justice Is Still Not Done
Dana Frank
June 2, 2011

<snip>

But supporters of the ongoing coup regime are happy, too. Up north, the US mainstream media was quick to declare that “the crisis is now over.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who’s been desperately seeking Zelaya’s return in order to create the semblance of two-party democracy, immediately announced that Honduras could now be readmitted to the Organization of American States. The fix was in: on Wednesday, June 1, the OAS indeed readmitted Honduras, with only Ecuador dissenting.

But the pact does nothing real to address the human rights crisis in Honduras. As a statement issued by twenty prominent groups—representing Honduran judges, ministers, women, indigenous, gay people, Afro-Hondurans and human rights activists—underscored, the original conditions for readmission to the OAS, including prosecution of the coup perpetrators, have by no means been met. “Innumerable violations of human rights” were committed during the coup, they note, but the accord "doesn’t record these facts; nor does it establish an effective mechanism for their investigations, sanction, and adequate reparation.”

Repression of the opposition in the past three months has in fact been worse than it was in the period immediately following the coup. Lobo’s police and military now routinely use tear gas canisters as lethal weapons, threats and assassinations of opposition journalists continue (including two murders in May) and free-range paramilitaries pick off campesino activists one by one in the Aguán Valley, where four people were killed in May alone. Two days after the accord, Lobo’s police used tear gas and live bullets against a group of high school students protesting their math teachers’ dismissal.

The judiciary system, moreover, is largely nonfunctional. Complete impunity reigns for the over thirty-six politically-motivated assassinations and over 300 suspicious murders of opposition members since Lobo took office, according to COFADEH, the leading independent human rights group in the country. The same military officers who perpetrated the coup are in charge of the armed forces and the state-owned telephone company.

[GIGObuster]

@smiling_bandit

Cute. But apathy has the great advantage of clarity. Neither knowing nor caring about Honduras, I can see more accurately than you, who have an emotional stake in the outcome.

As I came from Central America, I can say with some authority that **BrainGlutton **is the one that sees more accurately, and you still fail history forever, specially when admitting you are so uninterested in the actual background of the case.

[BrainGlutton]

@Martin_Hyde

This is 100% true, note that in actual cases where militant leftists essentially seize control of democracies and undermine the democratic process illegally BrainGlutton strongly supports them. He is a major supporter of Hugo Chavez whose own failed coup is a historical fact and whose fraudulent manipulation of election results is widely accepted by many international observers who aren’t Jimmy Carter.

1. Chavez started losing his luster for me about the time he banned Halloween as an instance of American cultural imperialism. (Of course it is. So what? Lighten up, Hugo! :rolleyes:)

2. Cite? (Something at least as credible as Jimmy Carter, please.)

3. Why don’t you tell us about Porfirio Lobo’s election? Please.

[BrainGlutton]

@BrainGlutton

Though it might be a mixed blessing. From The Nation:

BTW, from the same article:

When President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya finally returned to Honduras on Saturday, May 28, almost two years after he was deposed in a June 2009 military coup, the sea of people in red t-shirts greeting him at the Tegucigalpa airport and protesting the coup extended so far out into the streets that no one could really count them. It was by far the biggest demonstration in Honduran history. Even the pro-coup El Heraldo estimated 500,000 to 1.5 million people. TV Channel 11 said 900,000—or eleven percent of the entire Honduran population.

Try imagining that kind of turnout for any politician in any state of the Union.

[smiling_bandit]

@GIGObuster

As I came from Central America, I can say with some authority that **BrainGlutton **is the one that sees more accurately, and you still fail history forever, specially when admitting you are so uninterested in the actual background of the case.

Funny, as people with far more expertise than either of us disagree with you. I suppose they “fail history forever.” I should point out that I dont’ support either party, either, but I suppose I “fail history.”

Funny, it’s almost as if you know nothing whatsoever about it and reflexesively supported your own lefty favorite. Shocking.

[BrainGlutton]

@smiling_bandit

Funny, as people with far more expertise than either of us disagree with you.

Such as?